Bitcoin Crash Gets More Drastic, Crypto Owners Lose Hundreds of Billions

An already dramatic drop in the crypto markets has become even more drastic the bitcoin and other digital currencies lost hundreds of billions of dollars of their value.

Bitcoin fell 16.8 percent over the last week. Other coins suffered even more dramatic losses: Ethereum is now down 25 percent.

This follows what was already the worst start to the year for bitcoin in history. After hitting a record high of almost $68,000 in November, it is now worth less than $35,000.

The bitcoin price had already taken a big hit from Thursday night to Friday, when it fell from around $43,000 to roughly $38,500. But that drop continued further on Saturday, to hit a low of $34,064.

Anyone who bought bitcoin at the beginning of the year now saw a loss of more than 23 percent of its value, in just three weeks.

Cryptocurrency supporters had expected in recent days that the $40,000 level would be a major psychological barrier and that the price could stabilize above that level. Instead, it has fallen well below that and continued lower.

The recent drop also means that the price is in danger of going down for the year. At this point in 2021, bitcoin was trading at around $33,000, although just a few days after that, there would be a price rally that would take it above $50,000 and run strong for most of the summer.